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NCTech focuses on Google for sales boost [Scotland on Sunday]

(Scotland on Sunday Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) A SCOTTISH firm which has developed a revolutionary 360 degree camera is holding talks with Google about trialling the device in its street viewing service.Edinburgh-based NCTech is pursuing a sales and publicity drive after perfecting its iStar camera, which it builds in its Morningside premises.The firm has only sold a few hundred devices to date, but clients include the SAS, secret services and the FBI, and it was recently used to help secure the conviction of a criminal. Now it is in discussions with Google, which is keen to test the device for use in its Business View extension to the Street View network.Co-founder and chief technology officer Neil Tocher, who set up the company with business partner Cameron Ure, said the firm expects to sell about 200 of the cameras this year but should move into the thousands in 2015."A deal with Google would just blow [sales projections] out of the water," he added.With a starting price of GBP4,000, the 50 megapixel cameras may not be for the retail market but are so sensitive that images from one of the devices have just been used in a murder case by Warwickshire police.The camera allowed the jury at Birmingham Crown Court to be part of a virtual "walk through" of the crime scene.Tocher hopes more forces, including Police Scotland, will now adopt the device. The iStar was developed with the police and defence markets in mind, but Tocher expects the bulk of customers to be commercial operators such as mining engineers and surveyors.The company, which has developed its own software to go with the cameras and believes in sourcing components locally, has a network of 20 re- sellers across Europe and North America.It has not previously invested in publicity but has now set aside a "substantial sum" for a marketing offensive.Set up in 2008, NCTech has around 40 investors through the Archangel syndicate and employs around a dozen people.